Comments on: When students fail, who’s responsible?

By: jd2718

jd2718 — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:43:59 +0000

I’m late to this.

There is clearly a mess here. The observer from afar plays talk radio and looks to assess blame.

I wish that those involved are looking more closely at what went wrong and what can be done in the future.

I appreciate the thoughtful post.

I am troubled that those far from the situation are making strong guesses at what happened. How can that be useful?

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:35:21 +0000

@wpm1955: One key ingredient you’re leaving out there is student initiative. It’s very possible for the course to be properly designed, the professor to be teaching at an appropriately high level and assigning work at an appropriate level, and even for the students in the course to have all the right prerequisites — but when the professor leads, the students don’t follow.

This could happen for a number of reasons. Sometimes students, caught up in the overwhelming freedom of college life, get over-involved in cocurricular activities and don’t leave themselves enough time to struggle as they should with the material. Sometimes students simply choose to give their time and efforts to other things — some worthwhile and others frivolous. Some students are smart and prepared, but just lazy — or perhaps struggling with depression or homesickness or something else that kills their motivation. Whatever the case, students taking initiative for their own learning is the key catalyst in the university classroom, and if that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t really matter how many prereq’s have been met or how good a job the prof is doing.

And I suspect that this is at the center of all the business at Norfolk. Whatever else may have been going on or not going on there, it sounds to me like there’s an institutional problem with students not getting the idea that their #1 priority in college is learning, and devoting their time accordingly.

By: XTeacher

XTeacher — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:00:20 +0000

I taught math for one year at a a poverty-minority middle school, and was fired. Could not manage the classroom. At the beginning of the year the principal was adamant about giving passing grades. In retrospect, had I handed out more failing grades at the beginning of the year, students would have been more motivated to study, and classroom management would have been easier.

By: wpm1955

wpm1955 — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:04:50 +0000

I forgot to add that perhaps his TESTS are a problem. Some professors ask things on tests that are NOT adequately covered in the course itself. I had one psychology professor who did that. He lectured on one thing, and then tried to find the most picky details out of readings that he never talked about in class at all, to test students on!!!

Madame Monet
Writing, Painting, Music, and Wine
winewriter.wordpress.com

By: wpm1955

wpm1955 — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:02:33 +0000

I am a teacher, and have been for nearly twenty years. Any time more than twenty percent of students are failing (and that’s a very high percentage), I think something is VERY wrong. From kindergarten through university, a teacher always has to ask himself this question. Perhaps he is teaching the material at too high a level. If that is not true, why are the students failing? Do they not have the required math skills? If so, there need to be more prerequisites. Perhaps the course description and expectations in the catalog need to updated to reflect the true level of the course. And lastly, the instructor has to ask himself is he making TOO MANY COGNITIVE LEAPS, assuming that students are following? Perhaps the material needs to be broken into more steps. Perhaps the COURSE ITSELF needs to be broken into TWO courses–Part I, and Part II.

Madame Monet
Writing, Painting, Music, and Wine
winewriter.wordpress.com

By: greg

greg — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:00:56 +0000

Virus doc: How can you make such comments about teaching to Ivy League standards when no such information is given in the article? The administration itself recognized that he used sound methods, at least according to the article.

A fact is a fact. Do you think the students in other countries are allowed to pass classes without meeting all the course objectives? Do you think this might be a reason the U.S. is losing it’s technological edge?

I sincerely hope you are not in education.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:56:45 +0000

@virusdoc: I didn’t get the impression that Aird was attempting to teach an Ivy League-level course at Norfolk. But then again one of the missing pieces of information here is the course goals, syllabus, etc. It sounded to me from the article that he was doing a pretty run-of-the-mill intro course that could pass muster at any mid-major state university, but students simply couldn’t do the work. What work that was, the article didn’t say.

By: virusdoc

virusdoc — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:13:19 +0000

Unless the academic quality of the students at Norfolk is EXCEPTIONALLY low, then there is no question in my mind that this professor’s expectations of his students are unreasonable–particularly for entry level biology and chemistry courses. Knowing no other facts about the situation, it sounds like he is expecting freshmen and sophomores to perform at senior or graduate student levels. It’s one thing to have high standards, but quite another to expect the impossible!

Sounds like a reasonable tenure decision to me. Institutions like Norfolk must have effective teachers to survive. And this professor should never have accepted a position at Norfolk if he only wanted to teach Harvard class students.

By: philosopherP

philosopherP — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:18:18 +0000

I wonder how his students might perfom when examined on the course objectives?

One version of this story is that most of his Fs are for attendance failures, which is a university policy. I don’t know the details, but it seems unfair.